Effects of burning fossil fuels:

[nh mike]

Your analogy is what is so wrong with this "debate" as it grossly overstates the threat. I reject the "walking towards a cliff" analogy, which makes it sound like the danger is imminent when it isn't. Instead of a cliff it's more like a long gradual slope and one that I'm still many miles away from. More correctly stated, I've been blindfolded and been told if I kept walking in my chosen direction that bad things may happen to me, but not sure what things, or when they'll happen, possibly in 10-20 years, or 20-50 years or 50-100 years or even further out, or not at all.

In your opinion it overstates the threat. Not in the opinions of most scientists. In our physics department, I don't think there's a single one of the 50+ researchers who thinks we *aren't* causing global climate change, and would say it doesn't post a significant threat. Sure, it's not likely to be immediate (as in within the next few days), but you're greatly underestimating the potential suddenness of it. There are many highly positive feedbacks that once triggered, can greatly expedite the process - thawing of marshes releasing trapped methane, sudden melting of the Greenland ice (which will quickly decrease the salinity of the Atlantic, further slowing the Gulf Stream, reducing the heat transport out of the Gulf of Mexico - making it retain much more heat, and quickly cooling the eastern seaboard of the US and western Europe (this has started happening, but to a small degree. Once the Greenland ice shelf starts melting at a rapid pace, it will greatly expedite the process).

What's wrong with this "debate" is members of the public thinking that talking heads on TV know more than scientists about it.

 

[troy_heagy]

So let me get this straight. If I go out and borrow $30,000 to buy a new Lexus, I'm better off financially?????

I strongly disagree with that proposition.

I'm better off to keep the car I have now, and keep it running, and not go into debt. (Same principal applies at the national level.)

 

[euromade]

So let me get this straight. If I go out and borrow $30,000 to buy a new Lexus, I'm better off financially?????

I strongly disagree with that proposition.

I'm better off to keep the car I have now, and keep it running, and not go into debt. (Same principal applies at the national level.)

But if everyone stops buying then the $ stops and that is very dangerous. Once people pull the plug on spending they pull the plug on all sorts of goods and services exchange. In return, such a pattern eliminates many jobs.

We could all live on a bowl of rice a day and sleep in a wooden shack like 90% of Chinese do. You don't need to spend much to go day to day, but at the same time you have no opportunity to make much as there is no trade of goods/services happening in your micro-economic world.

 

[WDM]

...and the machine will not stop until it consumes everything and is somehow forced to grind to a screeching halt.

 

[Mike_Van]

To counter TornadoRed's less-than-fully-informed bashing of everything French, they have taken some steps in transport policy that we'd be foolish not to emulate in our effort to pursue the goal of energy independence:

- mandate 5% biodiesel in all diesel fuel sold.
- have tax-advantaged diesel over gasoline at the pump.

To help diesel along its road to better emissions, PSA (Peugeot/Citroën) have been building HDi's with particulate filters since the later 1990's.
MB & VAG needed to be pushed to implement those...

 

[TornadoRed]

The basic crux of it is that the US has to deal with the huge amount of debt we've accumulated by devaluing the dollar, so that what we end up paying is less than we borrowed in the first place. This makes it less and less appealing for other countries to lend us money in the first place (by buying dollars/treasury notes). THink about it - would you make an investment if you know with 95% certainty that you're going to lose money on the deal? That's essentially how other countries now perceive loaning us money...

Apparently not -- no one is holding a gun to their heads, forcing them to hold dollar assets. They choose to do so, because the rate of return is favorable. And the risk of default is always priced into any debt instrument.

So, when our leaders keep racking up $300+ billion deficits - what happens when nobody is willing to lend us that money?

Apparently they look at the ratio of debt to GDP, which is pretty good. Then they look at growth rates, which are very satisfactory. Then they look at alternatives, which aren't that great.

 

[TornadoRed]

However, our creditor nations must have a breaking point where they can no longer afford to do this. At some point, the more economically healthy creditor nations of ours will begin shifting assets to Euro backed assets and take thier medicine on the dollar fall and the resultant pain at the pump.... As time goes on, the Euro is starting to look like a more and more acceptable substitute...it all depends on stability and safety.

You presume that the Euro is a more-desirable currency. That may not be true. Many countries in the Euro zone have higher debt as a share of GDP than the US. (Not sure but the US might be very close to being a low-debt country.)

It's been wonderful that China and others have been so willing to buy dollar-based debt. This has allowed tens of millions of homeowners to refinance their mortgages at lower rates, so this is yet another way that our standard of living has been improved.

Since we keep bringing up China, I suspect that there will be increased demand for consumer and capital goods in China, and that country's current-account surplus will shrink. It could even become a net borrower, though I think it will have to float its currency first. Or maybe floating the yuan will be the trigger that turns China from a lender to a borrower. Either way, the integration of China into the global economy is one of the great achievements of the last 25-30 years.

 

[TornadoRed]

To counter TornadoRed's less-than-fully-informed bashing of everything French, they have taken some steps in transport policy that we'd be foolish not to emulate in our effort to pursue the goal of energy independence:

- mandate 5% biodiesel in all diesel fuel sold.
- have tax-advantaged diesel over gasoline at the pump.

To repeat, there is not enough farmland, to produce enough bio fuels, to supplant more than a small fraction of the petroleum we use. Maybe the French are doing this to support their own farmers. But it will end up causing a shift from food production to fuel production that will hurt folks in the Third World. And it is already causing the cutting of rain forests for the production of palm oil.

As for lower taxes on diesel versus gasoline... great idea.

 

[wxman]

Here’s something related to greenhouse gas emissions, if anyone is interested in commenting:

EPA Seeks Public Comment on U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Contact: Roxanne Smith, (202) 564-4355 / smith.roxanne@epa.gov

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking public comment on a draft report that analyzes sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The report, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2005, will be open for public comment for 30 days after the Federal Register notice is published.

After responding to public comments, EPA will submit, through the U.S. Department of State, the final inventory report to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, fulfilling its annual requirement as a party to this international treaty on climate change. The UNFCCC treaty, ratified by the United States in 1992, sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenge posed by climate change.

The inventory tracks annual greenhouse gas emissions at the national level and presents historical emissions from 1990 to 2005. The inventory also calculates carbon dioxide emissions that are removed from the atmosphere by "sinks," e.g., through the uptake of carbon by forests, vegetation, and soils.

EPA prepared the annual report in collaboration with experts from multiple federal agencies. The major finding in the draft report is that overall emissions during 2005 increased by less than one percent from the previous year. Total emissions of the six main greenhouse gases in 2005 were equivalent to 7,262 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. The draft report indicates that overall emissions have grown by 16 percent from 1990 to 2005, while the U.S. economy has grown by 55 percent over the same period.

Information on the draft 2007 report and how to submit public comments: http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport07.html

 

[Mike_Van]

"To repeat, there is not enough farmland, to produce enough bio fuels, to supplant more than a small fraction of the petroleum we use."

Depends entirely on the crops one uses. A recent radio program clued me in to the technology surrounding algae > BD production. It can be done in areas with less than 2" a year in annual rainfall. That would allow areas that grow food to continue to do so. The role of hemp (seed oil & cellulose) for fuel is, of course, completely ignored in the debate around crops for BD in this country. It barely needs fertilizer, pesticides or herbicides, which is why DuPont and Monsanto disapprove of it so.

And as to biofuels not being able to supplant more than a small fraction of what we use: reducing how much overall oil we use (trucking, trains, commuting, petrochemicals) ought to be the number one priortity, then. You know, conservation, which was mocked and derided as a mere matter of 'personal virtue,' rather than a basis for a sound energy policy by our VP in the spring of 2001. Not really surprising that as a supply-sider (let's have others just pump more oil, and my former company, which still pays me deferred compensation, sells the services to do so) he'd try to trivialize the role of the indvidual consumer's actions, but it really tells you what side he's on. He wants to make you believe that 300 million consumers can't affect the status quo by making low-energy-use choices.

You could not ask for a more compelling statement about efficiency than this: to produce $1000 of GDP, we consume twice as much energy as the Europeans and three times the amount of the Japanese (Ricardo Bayon, The Atlantic, Jan 2003). What this tells me is that their energy efficiency mandates and energy pricing does produce more efficient technology. These are the steps that many claim will 'ruin the economy.' That's bull. The people making money hand over fist in the status quo just don't want to give anything up and thus present this false argument. Their businesses might need to change, but why stand in the way of other businesses who wish to innovate?

"Maybe the French are doing this to support their own farmers. But it will end up causing a shift from food production to fuel production that will hurt folks in the Third World."

The French are, indeed, in the practice of subsidizing their farmers. This promotes access to locally-produced food from small farms, rather than the agribusiness model that dominates much of our food production here.
Quel horreur!

On Palm Oil for Biofuel vs food, if Third World countries are so poorly run (authoritarian, corrupt) that the will of the people fails to allow the nation's priorties to reflect biofuel prouction at the expense of food production, it sounds like they need a revolution.

 

[nicklockard]

You presume that the Euro is a more-desirable currency. That may not be true.

I did presume that the Euro will likely continue to get more and more attractive as an alternative; but I could be wrong...maybe our creditor nations will in the future invest in themselves instead of propping us up.

Regardless, you can not have a meaningful discussion by divorcing this topic from oil, climate change, and taxation. They are intimately related. Your linear approach has lots of nice answers but they are divorced from your premises. Please look at the bigger picture.

 

[BioDiesel]

60 million refugees predicted by the World Bank

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17150339/

 

[Judson]

In your opinion it overstates the threat. Not in the opinions of most scientists. In our physics department, I don't think there's a single one of the 50+ researchers who thinks we *aren't* causing global climate change, and would say it doesn't post a significant threat. Sure, it's not likely to be immediate (as in within the next few days), but you're greatly underestimating the potential suddenness of it. There are many highly positive feedbacks that once triggered, can greatly expedite the process - thawing of marshes releasing trapped methane, sudden melting of the Greenland ice (which will quickly decrease the salinity of the Atlantic, further slowing the Gulf Stream, reducing the heat transport out of the Gulf of Mexico - making it retain much more heat, and quickly cooling the eastern seaboard of the US and western Europe (this has started happening, but to a small degree. Once the Greenland ice shelf starts melting at a rapid pace, it will greatly expedite the process).

What's wrong with this "debate" is members of the public thinking that talking heads on TV know more than scientists about it.

It's got nothing to do with the warming - most sane people
would be readily willing to accept Global Warming if it
wasn't wrapped up in hyperbole, and politics. There's
been enough mistakes by scientists making guesses and
theories in the past to cause any reasonable person to
doubt global warming disaster scenarios. It's called "crying
wolf" and as someone who lived through the whole
Global Cooling scare, I think that's an entirely valid attitude
to take towards this current effort. Worse, branding anybody
who disagrees with Global Warming evil only makes the
same people distrust the science more.

Tell you what: *after* Greenland returns to being
entirely green, I will admit that *maybe* the planet is
operating outside normal operating conditions. Maybe.
We are adaptable creatures and under no danger of
extinction whatsoever from global warming. Yes, there
could be sudden climate change, yes, there even could
be a few disasters that could be directly attributed to it.
Get....over....it. We are in far greater danger of a
massive volcano or a nuclear war, and the implications
of both are even greater than global warming. Maybe
the operant word about global warming is to "just chill."

In comparison, and Ice Age's impacts on humans worldwide
does directly affect the *survival* of billions of people.
Having sheets of ice covering most of North America,
Europe, Russia, China, Argentina, and who knows what
else is far greater a concern than Global Warming will
EVER be.

[I do believe that there's global warming, and I believe that
us humans play a significant part in it - perhaps 50%,
but likely no more than that. I am absolutely one hundred
billion dead-set against the myriad lawsuits that lawyers
are salivating over should Global Warming become official
policy.]

 

[SuburbanTDI]

I did presume that the Euro will likely continue to get more and more attractive as an alternative; but I could be wrong...maybe our creditor nations will in the future invest in themselves instead of propping us up.
Your linear approach has lots of nice answers but they are divorced from your premises. Please look at the bigger picture.

Here's a look at the big picture you may be missing out on, we are not being "propped up".

It's fairly simple, when we spend dollars to buy goods in China, cars in Japan or oil in the mideast - those people are left with dollars.

There is only one place to spend dollars.

Any movement out of dollar assets into the euro will have a self-leveling effect as it will slow or halt US purchases abroad cutting off their income while rapidly inflating euro asset values. This would then cause the smart money to flee the euro into the dollar to purchase our assets at fire sale prices. And so on and on...

 

[Judson]

Here's a look at the big picture you may be missing out on, we are not being "propped up".

It's fairly simple, when we spend dollars to buy goods in China, cars in Japan or oil in the mideast - those people are left with dollars.

There is only one place to spend dollars.

Any movement out of dollar assets into the euro will have a self-leveling effect as it will slow or halt US purchases abroad cutting off their income while rapidly inflating euro asset values. This would then cause the smart money to flee the euro into the dollar to purchase our assets at fire sale prices. And so on and on...

Aye. The only poor countries on the planet are those that are
economically isolated. We are all interlinked, all interwoven;
isolationist tendencies are damaging ones.

On a side note, for those that think fossil fuels are running out,
that too is equally a scare tactic on the same level as global
warming. Here's a nice article that discusses this:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/

under Peak Performance

He leaves out Mexico's huge Gulf discovery (which, ahem, the
USA would have made, and could still make, but for our own
chains).

Other little tidbits: Iraq is 95% unexplored. Saudi Arabia's
oil well density is minimal compared to most oil fields, as
is Kuwaits and others.

And Canada's oil sands, currently being exploited in a truly
massive scale, will come online in the next decade or earlier
also.

 

[nh mike]

But if everyone stops buying then the $ stops and that is very dangerous. Once people pull the plug on spending they pull the plug on all sorts of goods and services exchange. In return, such a pattern eliminates many jobs.

True. The problem is that our current "apparent" good economy was built based on lowering interest rates extremely low to encourage people to rack up enormous amounts of debt, just to keep buying products, to boost the economy. IMO that is an artificially good economy. We've made our economy *look* good by racking up massive debt at the personal and federal level - essentially building an economy on a house of cards.

We could all live on a bowl of rice a day and sleep in a wooden shack like 90% of Chinese do. You don't need to spend much to go day to day, but at the same time you have no opportunity to make much as there is no trade of goods/services happening in your micro-economic world.

The issue though is that we shouldn't be racking up more debt than we can afford to pay off, just for the purpose of keeping our economy running. That is not a well managed economy. That is what lead to the great depression in 1929, when interest rates had been lowered to extremely low levels to encourage people to buy-buy-buy, as a means of trying to boost the economy. Taken to an extreme (which is what happened then, and what is happening now), this resulted in massive debt accumulation that people couldn't afford to pay off - and ultimately the house of cards came crashing down.

Politicians have loved citing the large rate of housing purchases and rapidly climbing house prices as supposed evidence of a surging economy. The more important (IMO) figure they DON'T mention though is the massive rise in foreclosures and bankruptcies resulting from people racking up too much debt. The problem is that we are getting incredibly in debt at both the personal and federal level, setting ourselves up for a big fall.

 

[nh mike]

Apparently not -- no one is holding a gun to their heads, forcing them to hold dollar assets. They choose to do so, because the rate of return is favorable.

So, what you're saying is you didn't bother to read any of the links? (which make it clear that the rate of return is no longer favorable, due to our devaluing of the dollar). China has been minimizing the damage from this for a while by keeping the value of their currency pegged to the dollar (while others are switching to the Euro), such that devaluing the dollar also devalues their currency, helping them out with imports. But, since they are realizing they could get a much better return on their money by investing it elsewhere (such as buying gold or Euros rather than dollars), they are not likely to be interested in buying up treasury notes indefinitely.

And again, a big factor in their continued purchasing of the dollar is realizing that if they don't, our economy will crumble, and cause a global recession. So, we're not actually holding a gun at their heads to make them buy our treasury notes, but there is an element of blackmail involved, in that if they don't prop up our economy, a global recession is the almost certain result (especially bad for China, since we are a large purchaser of Chinese-made goods). But, other countries have been gradually setting themselves up to be more able to deal with such an event as our economy crumbling - focusing on exports to other parts of the globe, etc..

Apparently they look at the ratio of debt to GDP, which is pretty good. Then they look at growth rates, which are very satisfactory. Then they look at alternatives, which aren't that great.

Nice try.

 

[nh mike]

You presume that the Euro is a more-desirable currency. That may not be true. Many countries in the Euro zone have higher debt as a share of GDP than the US. (Not sure but the US might be very close to being a low-debt country.)

Can you provide actual data to back that?

Some other countries do have large debts (none nearly as large as ours, and I think only one other country has a larger debt as a percentage of GDP). A big difference though is that the other countries with substantial debt are generally countries that have a net trade surplus, and don't have substantial personal doubt. Here in the US, we have the trifecta - massive federal debt (and growing), massive trade deficits, and massive personal debt (and quickly growing). That is a very, very bad combination.

You would do well to read this, to learn how the current system evolved, and the position it puts us in:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20061014&articleId=3482
Note that this was written in 2003, before some important events happened that made our position more precarious - such as several important countries and institutions (such as OPEC) shifting towards standardizing on the euro, rather than the dollar.

It's been wonderful that China and others have been so willing to buy dollar-based debt. This has allowed tens of millions of homeowners to refinance their mortgages at lower rates, so this is yet another way that our standard of living has been improved.

Again, the problem is our standard of living rests precariously on a deck of cards, due to our massive debt. Please read that article linked above, it should explain much of this better than I am doing.

It is also important to realize that much of our GDP is purely on paper, not real production. For example, company A closes its US-based manufacturing plant, and builds one in China where it can make widgets for $0.30 rather than $1 each. By the time they are shipped to the US, maybe they have cost the company 50 cents each. They sell them in the US for $5 each. That shows up as $4.50 each on our GDP, since effectively they spent 50 cents out of country building them, but show a revenue of $5 each. But, where did that money come from? From Americans - and more importantly - to a greater and greater degree, it comes from AMericans borrowing money - from CHina. This temporarily props our standard of living, but for no real actual production. Effectively we're relying on foreign-loaned money to buy foreign-produced goods to create virtual wealth in the US. That's like a person quitting his job (manufacturing plant shipped overseas) and instead taking out a loan to replace his income, and thinking he's doing just as well economically.

 

[nh mike]

To repeat, there is not enough farmland, to produce enough bio fuels, to supplant more than a small fraction of the petroleum we use.

What do you base this on?

Considering the amount of photosynthetically active sunlight hitting just the landmass portion of the earth is over 2,250 times current global energy consumption, how can you make such a claim?

This isn't Fox News, people won't accept something as being true just because someone says so.

 

[nh mike]

It's got nothing to do with the warming - most sane people
would be readily willing to accept Global Warming if it
wasn't wrapped up in hyperbole, and politics. There's
been enough mistakes by scientists making guesses and
theories in the past to cause any reasonable person to
doubt global warming disaster scenarios.

Ya gotta love it when non-scientists use this "scientists have been wrong in the past, so why should we believe anything they say" argument. Essentially, it doesn't matter if science theories are right 999 times out of 1,000, if there has ever been one theory that was wrong, we should apparently discount any scientific model, no matter how much consensus there is behind it in the scientific community, and how much data there is to support it.

It's a nice trump card to essentially toss away any scientific evidence. So, if you want to rely on that, what really is the point of participating in this discussion?

It's called "crying wolf" and as someone who lived through the whole Global Cooling scare, I think that's an entirely valid attitude
to take towards this current effort.

This supposed "global cooling scare" has largely been blown out of proportion by right wing media groups. At the time, all it was was some media people completely misinterpreting what the scientific community was saying (that based on natural trends we are heading towards a cooling era - of course it will take thousands of years for a significant cooling to happen from the natural cycle though).

I know Rush and their ilk like to make this claim about a massive global cooling scare the scientific community supposedly created in the 1970s, to argue that "they were wrong before, they can be wrong again". Can you point to any papers from then in peer-reviewed journals making such claims about a great cooling that was coming immently? How about point me to an international panel of scientists set up back then that agreed there was an imminent cooling coming?

No? Didn't think so.

Worse, branding anybody
who disagrees with Global Warming evil only makes the
same people distrust the science more.

I didn't brand anyone evil - just misinformed.

Tell you what: *after* Greenland returns to being
entirely green, I will admit that *maybe* the planet is
operating outside normal operating conditions. Maybe.

That's like saying "after someone shoots you in the head and your dead, *maybe* I'll admit that someone is trying to kill you, and that you need protection.

The whole point of making these models is so we don't HAVE to wait until disaster hits before knowing we need to do something about it.

We are adaptable creatures and under no danger of
extinction whatsoever from global warming. Yes, there
could be sudden climate change, yes, there even could
be a few disasters that could be directly attributed to it.
Get....over....it.

So, who cares if hundreds of millions of people may die, and wars may end up being fought to try to get usable land? (that was the Pentagon's prediction, remember)

We are in far greater danger of a
massive volcano or a nuclear war, and the implications
of both are even greater than global warming. Maybe
the operant word about global warming is to "just chill."

Your argument is so absurd I honestly can't tell whether you're joking or not.

In comparison, and Ice Age's impacts on humans worldwide
does directly affect the *survival* of billions of people.

Massive droughts *don't* affect the survival of billions of people? Complete shifting (and in some cases halting) of ocean conveyors, causing massive cooling in some areas, and heating in others, doesn't affect the survival of billions of people? Massive flooding if/when Greenland's ice sheet melts *doesn't* affect the survival of billions of people?

Seriously, are you joking?

Having sheets of ice covering most of North America,
Europe, Russia, China, Argentina, and who knows what
else is far greater a concern than Global Warming will
EVER be.

It would be worse - but it's not something that's going to happen anytime within the next 10,000 years.

 

[nh mike]

Here's a look at the big picture you may be missing out on, we are not being "propped up".

It's fairly simple, when we spend dollars to buy goods in China, cars in Japan or oil in the mideast - those people are left with dollars.

There is only one place to spend dollars.

Wow. Do you honestly believe there is only one place to spend dollars?

Any movement out of dollar assets into the euro will have a self-leveling effect as it will slow or halt US purchases abroad cutting off their income while rapidly inflating euro asset values.

Cutting off their income? So, you are under the impression that the US is the only consumer in the world?

Substantial movement out of the dollar, into the euro, would mean the US is essentially bankrupted, since we would have to default on our loans (since we have to rely on more loans to be able to pay the interest on our loans).

There would be a self-leveling, sure - that's what the great depression was.

 

[nh mike]

On a side note, for those that think fossil fuels are running out,
that too is equally a scare tactic on the same level as global
warming. Here's a nice article that discusses this:

http://www.techcentralstation.com/

under Peak Performance

What he misses is that the concern is not just with global oil production "peaking" (that's the faulty premise of the peakers), but rather when global oil production is not able to grow enough to keep pace with global oil demand. THAT is an unavoidable consequence of the rapid growth rates of industry in CHina and INdia, and that any depletable resource can not undergo similar growth patterns indefinitely.

Oil fields can not be pumped as fast as we want, there are limits on the rates at which you can extract the oil. There are not such limits on the rate at which oil demand can grow.

Other little tidbits: Iraq is 95% unexplored.

Huh? Their oil fields are *fairly* well known - they are just largely untapped.

Saudi Arabia's
oil well density is minimal compared to most oil fields, as
is Kuwaits and others.

If you are meaning to imply by that that they can significantly increase the rate at which they are pumping oil, that would be wrong.

And Canada's oil sands, currently being exploited in a truly
massive scale, will come online in the next decade or earlier
also.

Which would be horrendous from the greenhouse gas perspective. The amount of energy spent on producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands is ridiculous.

 

[TornadoRed]

Can you provide actual data to back that?

Some other countries do have large debts (none nearly as large as ours, and I think only one other country has a larger debt as a percentage of GDP). A big difference though is that the other countries with substantial debt are generally countries that have a net trade surplus, and don't have substantial personal doubt.

This seems like a pretty good source:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html

For the US, public debt as a percentage of GDP: about 65%
For Germany: 67%
For Japan: 175%
Italy: 108%
Canada: 66%
France 64%
India: 53%
Brazil: 51%
China: 22%
South Korea: 21%
Australia: 14%

So the US is in the middle of the pack of major industrialized nations, and Japan is the one which is heavily indebted. I think some low-debt countries have poor credit ratings and aren't able to get loans, while others are growing rapidly so have a low debt-to-GDP ratio.

It is also important to realize that much of our GDP is purely on paper, not real production.

Are you aware of how quickly manufacturing output has grown in the US?
From the Federal Reserve Bank:

You mistake the number of workers employed in manufacturing with the overall output from manufacturing. We don't need as many workers because of automation. (That's a good thing, because there's a shortage of workers.)

 

[TornadoRed]

Apparently not -- no one is holding a gun to their heads, forcing them to hold dollar assets. They choose to do so, because the rate of return is favorable.

So, what you're saying is you didn't bother to read any of the links? (which make it clear that the rate of return is no longer favorable, due to our devaluing of the dollar).

Here's about 11.5 years of data, showing the relationship between the US dollar and the Euro.

I don't see much change in the last 36 months -- isn't that a sign of a currency that is neither appreciating nor depreciating?

China has been minimizing the damage from this for a while by keeping the value of their currency pegged to the dollar (while others are switching to the Euro), such that devaluing the dollar also devalues their currency, helping them out with imports. But, since they are realizing they could get a much better return on their money by investing it elsewhere (such as buying gold or Euros rather than dollars), they are not likely to be interested in buying up treasury notes indefinitely.

The damage of pegging their currency to a stable dollar? Hmmm. Gold is higher, so someone is buying it.

It was only 3 days ago that I wrote about interest rates adjusting to reflect changes in demand for one currency or another. Since you point out (correctly) that I don't read everything you link to, I can only ask that you read what I write.

 

[TornadoRed]

What do you base this on?

Considering the amount of photosynthetically active sunlight hitting just the landmass portion of the earth is over 2,250 times current global energy consumption, how can you make such a claim?

If you want to figure out how to make fuel from algae or switchgrass or jojoba or mouse feces, go ahead. And then if you want to build a processing plant, go ahead.

But right now biofuels = ethanol from corn or sugarcane, or biodiesel from soybeans, canola, or African oil palms.

 

[nicklockard]

I know Rush and their ilk like to make this claim about a massive global cooling scare the scientific community supposedly created in the 1970s, to argue that "they were wrong before, they can be wrong again". Can you point to any papers from then in peer-reviewed journals making such claims about a great cooling that was coming immently? How about point me to an international panel of scientists set up back then that agreed there was an imminent cooling coming?

No? Didn't think so.

I made that same challenge 25 posts back or so....not a single taker. So, I conclude that they are full of crapola. Urban Myth Hooey! (UMH, kinda like a UFO...no conclusive evidence it ever existed.) More bullcrap propagandists...cheap, transparent propaganda too.

 

[AutoDiesel]

It is also important to realize that much of our GDP is purely on paper, not real production.

That is false and is belittling the true achievements of our
current economy.

Sounds like you don't know the difference between
the GDP and the GNP.

GDP is.........

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp

Gross Domestic Product - GDP
The monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis. It includes all of private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.

GNP is.......

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gnp.asp

Gross National Product - GNP
GNP is a measure of a country's economic performance, or what its citizens produced (i.e. goods and services) and whether they produced these items within its borders.

Your assertion was argued before around here (not necessarily by you)
and it was wrong then and is still wrong today. (and tomorrow)

TornadoRed is doing fine rebutting the rest of your points.

 

[Tin Man]

This seems like a pretty good source:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html

For the US, public debt as a percentage of GDP: about 65%
For Germany: 67%
For Japan: 175%
Italy: 108%
Canada: 66%
France 64%
India: 53%
Brazil: 51%
China: 22%
South Korea: 21%
Australia: 14%

So the US is in the middle of the pack of major industrialized nations, and Japan is the one which is heavily indebted. I think some low-debt countries have poor credit ratings and aren't able to get loans, while others are growing rapidly so have a low debt-to-GDP ratio.


Are you aware of how quickly manufacturing output has grown in the US?
From the Federal Reserve Bank:

You mistake the number of workers employed in manufacturing with the overall output from manufacturing. We don't need as many workers because of automation. (That's a good thing, because there's a shortage of workers.)

Gee. Too bad politics has a lot to do with people's perceptions of the economy. Lets not have facts get in the way of real opinions! Sigh.

Thanks for the data.

TM

 

[hevster1]

On a small side note Gore won an oscar last night. I always knew he was a good actor/director.

 

[TornadoRed]

On a small side note Gore won an oscar last night. I always knew he was a good actor/director.

Not really. Gore's movie won an Oscar, but Gore was not the director or producer, merely a cast member. So no Oscar for him.

I'm not surprised that the Melissa Etheridge song from the movie won... the competition was weak, even the Randy Newman song from "Cars".